Begin sketching your design on board. Choose old style letters so that it will match background. Paint or color letters with high contrasting colors. Color sides of your frame. Add some design but do not over-decorate it. After paint dries, gently rub surface of frame with sandpaper. The purpose of rubbing is to dull sign so that it will show wear and tear. Coat entire surface with thinner. The coating on edges must be heavier than center. Use another brush to stipple surface. This will smooth out surface and will give an aged effect. Let it dry. Then, coat surface with oil-based varnish. Leave it for about two hours before applying water-based varnish. After an hour cracks can be seen. You may use hair dry to speed up drying process and more cracks will be visible. When board is completely dry, rub surface with black patina. This makes cracks more visible. Finish it by coating gloss varnish to make color richer. Old-style sign boards are best and mostly used in clubs and restaurants.

Start converting your atmosphere with that antique look and have that 60’s feel.

2.Microsoft’s Digital Image Suite 10 – this offering by Microsoft debuted last month, with expanded set of tools to satisfy your passion for digital photography. This includes all new features found in Digital Image Pro and more and Digital Image Library for those dead– set in a digital photography career0.

Several innovative features are: 1) by cataloging photos in Digital Image Library guarantee you quick storing and retrieving of photos; 2) with Photo Story 2.0, you could create videos using your photos, with all audio-visual effects; 3) as you view your photos, flags allow you to designate next-steps to do with your photos; 4) on-click Auto Fixes help you adjust color, exposure and more; 5) complex editing problems can be handled easily with Color and Exposure toolsets; 6) Panoramic Stitching lets you piece together multiple horizontal and vertical photos; 7) allows precise adjustments over five curves; 8) you can remove unwanted noise in your pictures; 9) with Fix Red Eye Tool to remove red eye from photos; 9) can delete unwanted things in background of your photo by Smart Erase tool.

Good news! It’s available on market already and costs $129.

If two tools given above doesn’t satisfy you enough, you could still have other reliable tools for your Photo Editing. You may try Jac’s Paint Shop Pro 9 and Apple’s iPhoto for other needed features to help you with your Digital Images. -30-

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Lala C. Ballatan is a 26 year-old Communication Arts graduate.Book reading has always been her greatest passion -- mysteries, horrors, psycho-thrillers, historical documentaries and classics.

Her writing prowess began as early as she was 10 years old in girlish diaries. With writing, she felt freedom – to express her viewpoints and assert it, to bring out all concerns -- imagined and observed, to bear witness.